Aussie Copperband?

[Reefin' Alaska]

I had never heard this before..

A guy at my LFS who is generally a fountain of knowledge and really helped me get my reef to where it is today said something to a customer that there is a more commonly purchased copper and there is also one from Australia that is generally widely more accepting of food and easier to get to eat in his experience.

I did find Australian ones online and a few claims of that, but the ones I found are exponentially more expensive.

I’m willing to risk $150 to get one here, but not sure about $400-500.

Any validity to this? Or?

 

[exnisstech]

I've not had trouble getting mine to eat but I have a process and don't just dump them into a DT and let them fend for themselves. My last one I bought several months ago was $89. They had one eating for twice that price but I took the one not eating and trained it so I now have a male and female paired. I've not heard that ausies are easier to get to eat but it wouldn't surprise me. I've heard of other fish and some coral from there doing better than the same from other places.
There is some info in the thread below. I described my method in post #7

Copperband Butterflyfish - A beautiful but hard to keep species.

Chelmon rostratus, one of the most iconic reef fish but one of the worst to attempt. If this wasn’t one of the first “unusual” fish to catch your eye then I’ll be surprised as many people will walk into an LFS for the first time and there will usually be one, two or in some cases four of this...

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[Uncle99]

No trouble at all eating, was eating PE mysis, when I got him he went into observation and feeding only QT, so me, no meds.

Ate slow at first, but each day got faster.

at 15 days, he was released.

So far all fears about this fish, none came true.

Sounds like a way to jack the price.

 

[Tamberav]

I had never heard this before..

A guy at my LFS who is generally a fountain of knowledge and really helped me get my reef to where it is today said something to a customer that there is a more commonly purchased copper and there is also one from Australia that is generally widely more accepting of food and easier to get to eat in his experience.

I did find Australian ones online and a few claims of that, but the ones I found are exponentially more expensive.

I’m willing to risk $150 to get one here, but not sure about $400-500.

Any validity to this? Or?

The difficulty of getting them to eat is rectified by having live worm culture on hand. You can spend $20-$30 on this. If they still don't eat, then you are dealing with disease, stress, or poor handling through the chain.

For those mentioning price, the australian copperband is not an identical fish

It is Chelmon marginalis - a "normal" copperband is Chelmon rostratus

It is more rare here in the states so the price makes sense.

 

[Reefin' Alaska]

The difficulty of getting them to eat is rectified by having live worm culture on hand. You can spend $20-$30 on this. If they still don't eat, then you are dealing with disease, stress, or poor handling through the chain.

For those mentioning price, the australian copperband is not an identical fish

It is Chelmon marginalis - a "normal" copperband is Chelmon rostratus

It is more rare here in the states so the price makes sense.

Any chance you might point me in the right direction for the worm thing stuff?

 

[Tamberav]

Any chance you might point me in the right direction for the worm thing stuff?

This seller! She is on etsy too. Very dense culture. I had her ship me some recently, they handle the cold well and woke up after a few hours.

You can feed them greek yogurt and they will multiply, split the culture into new soil/container when they start to crawl up the side. They do better some where cooler, 60-70ish, basement, cold closet, etc.\

I cut out some plastic craft mesh and squish it on top of the yogurt, just makes them easier to harvest is all. There are several threads on here about white worm cultures.

Pardon Our Interruption...

White Worms for food

IMO worms are about the best food you can feed along with clams. These foods contain bacteria "That our fish need" to stay healthy along with the fats, minerals and everything else to keep them healthy. I hear all the time that worms are to hard to keep and they have to be kept cool. No, they...

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